Shene

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. An old adjective meaning bright, gleaming or beautiful ; the former name of the town of Richmond in Surrey, England
2. Archaic term for something radiant or shining with light ; a historical name for the place now called Richmond in southwest London
3. Obsolete word describing a bright, glowing appearance ; an earlier designation for the Surrey town later renamed Richmond

Etymology: Before "shene" survived as a poetic adjective for things that gleam, it was a plain Old English word, "scēne," meaning beautiful, splendid or fair. Its sense of bright, shining beauty came first; the notion of light was attached to it later in the word's life, which is the reverse of how most modern readers would guess. The adjective is an inherited Old English form, related to the Old High German "scōni" (beautiful), and it belongs to the same family as the word "sheen," which comes from a noun meaning brightness or splendour. The word then fell out of everyday speech and survived mostly in northern English dialects and in literary revivals. Romantic and Victorian writers, drawn to archaic vocabulary, brought it back, and it is still mainly found in verse and in dialect use.

Synonyms: bright, shining, gleaming, radiant

Antonyms: dull, dim